Week Sauce
President Trump has delayed his decision on bunker busting Iran’s nuclear facilities for two weeks. In theory, this could make room for negotiations or provide enough time for Israel to knock out more of Iran’s defenses that could target US bombers or military bases in the region. Or it could just be more weak sauce from a guy who constantly promises things in two weeks. Here’s three straight minutes of him doing just that. However America responds, “the Iranian regime finds itself in its most difficult position 46 years after the revolution that brought it to power.” Roger Cohen in the NYT (Gift Article): An Islamic Republic With Its Back Against the Wall. “Whether the current difficulty facing Iran’s regime will lead to its demise remains to be seen. Isolated cries of ‘Death to Khamenei’ rise into the night sky, but popular protests are impossible under bombs, and always risky under the thumb of the government. There are no obvious leaders to steer any political transition for the same reason.”
+ Did Trump and Bibi work together to pull off the ultimate psyop on Iran by scheduling a negotiation and then launching an attack just before it was to take place? Maybe. But this analysis from Julia Ioffe in Puck seems more on the mark: “In the week since the Israeli attack on Iran commenced, it’s been looking more and more like the story of that brilliant Trump–Bibi psyop was itself a psyop, with Trump as the target. Whatever the president’s level of involvement in, or assent to, Israel’s bombing campaign—and all we have now are conflicting accounts—it’s clear that Bibi knows how to manipulate his counterpart, possibly right into a war that Trump has claimed he doesn’t want.” (I’m no fan of Bibi, but puting him in a complex geopolitical negotiation with Trump, Witkoff, and Huckabee isn’t even close to a fair fight.)
+ Israelis have to deal with constant missile warnings that send them to underground shelters. Iranians have to deal with getting no warnings at all. Iran’s internet blackout leaves public in dark and creates an uneven picture of the war with Israel.
+ Iran appoints new IRGC intel chief after two predecessors killed by Israel. (How do you even begin to write that want ad?)
